Abstract - The Information Society 14(3)

Internetworking and the Politics of Science: NSFNET in Internet History

Juan D. Rogers

This paper presents an account of the process of development of
the NSFNET and its significance for the emergence of the INTERNET of the 1990s.
The fact that the development of the interconnected system of computer networks
occurred within the realm of academic research is not incidental. The dynamics
of the world of scientific research were intimately related to the shaping of
the network and to the way in which it spread to other sectors of society. The
construction of computer networks crossed the boundaries between science and
society in order to build the scientific realm by transforming the world in
which it is embedded.